Chris,
I've gotta say, I really like the word-smithing in this brief. In
particular:
"..tilt at straw men.." pp 12
"..Marie Antoinette-like suggestion.." pp 16
"..does not pass the straight-face test.." pp 19
"..hyperbolic straw man.." pp 22
and my personal favorite:
"..play hunt the peanut.." pp 24 (hilarious)
And, thought I have a pretty fair vocabulary, I had to look up
"tautological" on page 21. I like it.
Although IANAL, IMHO, this looks like a well-prepared position. Your
crew threw in these tasty morsels at just the time non-technical's
would have started to go into glaze-over mode, so it makes for a good
read. Plus, the arguments are well-stated, and the contrasts are
obvious.
I'd hate to be the FCC when it comes to oral (if you get there). The
preparation sessions for this document must have been fun!
Congrats!
73,
Karl, WA5TMC
--------------------------------------
"Of, By, and For..." - Not just words!
Karl Bullock, WA5TMC
ARRL Vice Director - Delta Division
321 CR 458
Ripley, MS 38663
662 512-8053
w3kd@aol.com wrote:
Greetings. Yesterday afternoon (the deadline), the
WilmerHale firm filed our reply brief in the Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit. A copy is attached. I think it is a great
job. Thanks to Ed Hare for his input into the language of parts of it
as well.
You will note that this brief focuses largely on the FCC's
unprecedented failure to protect mobile stations from interference if
the BPL operator reduces its radiated emissions by 20 dB below the Part
15 maxima, even if harmful interference persists thereafter. This
represents, likely, our best chance of obtaining a remand. The reply
brief also hits very hard on the inapplicability of the 40 dB per
decade of distance extrapolation factor applied to BPL system
measurements. I was disheartened when I read the briefs of the FCC and
their intervenors on this subject, because they seemed to justify
holding up on revisiting the 40 dB/decade argument, but I think that
the argument in this reply brief addresses and rebuts the FCC's and
their intervenors' arguments very well indeed.
This brief avoids the trap that the FCC and the intervenors attempted
to set for us by their argument that the FCC specifically found that
BPL will not normally cause interference, so there is no Section 301
violation, and FCC's technical conclusion is entitled to great
deference by the Court. We did not spend time arguing whether or not
the FCC made a correct technical factual finding. Had we done so, the
Court would simply defer to the FCC.
So, this brief is surgical. I hope you will agree that this is a good
brief. As Jon Frankel said this morning in an e-mail to the WilmerHale
team and me: "In a perfect world, these briefs would trigger a remand.
As it stands, we will probably have to beat them senseless at oral
argument." That pretty much sums it up.
73, Chris W3KD